


Not A Place But A Moment

by afteriwake



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-18
Updated: 2013-06-18
Packaged: 2017-12-15 10:24:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/848417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afteriwake/pseuds/afteriwake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock returns home, battered and injured and worse for wear, but he returns to the person who knew him best, who he trusted most, who he did all this for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not A Place But A Moment

**Author's Note:**

> I got hit with the idea at work, when a few of my co-workers and I were discussing what to expect in season three of Sherlock. One of them said they hoped Sherlock came back injured and that's where the idea came from. Title comes from the following quote by Sarah Dessen in What Happened to Goodbye: "Home wasn't a set house, or a single town on a map. It was wherever the people who loved you were, whenever you were together. Not a place, but a moment, and then another, building on each other like bricks to create a solid shelter that you take with you for your entire life, wherever you may go."

Sherlock remembered the first time John Watson had entered his home. Their home, he supposed. It had truly become a home when John had arrived in his life, and it had been a home they shared. It had become a safe place, a haven of sorts. And Sherlock remembered that the first time he entered he had had a cane and a limp. Psychosomatic, the limp, but it had been there. Within one day it was gone, however. There had been no more heavy thud of a cane on the steps and the floor.

Now, as Sherlock arrived home for the first time in many years, there would be.

His own limp was _not_ psychosomatic. The bullet had ripped through his leg, damaging it greatly. He had not been able to see a doctor for days and the damage had been extensive. The only thing he was thankful for was that it was the last thing that had happened to him before he was able to come home. He had not had to rely on the cane that he now needed while chasing after the tattered remnants of a criminal empire. He had been able to come home shortly afterwards.

He knew John was there. He had not left, which surprised Sherlock greatly. He would have thought for sure as hope that he was still alive wore thin and the scorn of being associated with him wore his friend down that he would leave. Mycroft didn’t tell him exactly why John had stayed. Perhaps it was one of the many things Mycroft had never been able to figure out about John Watson. To Mycroft, John was an enigma of sorts, never doing what was expected. To Sherlock, John was a many layered mystery, but one he thought he knew well, one he had great delight in solving. To Mycroft he was the person his brother chose to associate with; to Sherlock, he was his friend.

He took out the key Mycroft had given him. Mrs. Hudson had changed the locks, probably after the second or third time someone attempted to break in. He knew nothing had ever been taken, though things had been damaged; the great pains Moriarty had taken to destroy his reputation meant his friends had been harassed and his home had been targeted. It would take a long time to undo the damage, if it ever got completely undone. Mycroft had said Lestrade had set about trying to restore it, almost at the cost of his job, and Mycroft had his own ways to rectify things. The phone with which Sherlock had recorded the last conversation he ever had with James Moriarty was a key, and he was thankful he had tossed it aside before jumping off that roof.

He’d had a slight limp after that. No one can fall from that great a height without damage. But as time had gone on the problems associated with his great fall had faded. The broken wrist had healed, the limp had gone away. The damage the bullet had done was more permanent, and he knew he would remember that day vividly every time he moved. He hoped with time the memories would fade, but every time the muscle ached he knew he would remember. The day would haunt him for the rest of his life; he just hoped it would haunt him less as time wore on.

He opened the door and stepped inside. So far, none of the people he had saved knew he was home. Not even Molly, and he had told her nearly everything that had happened while he was gone. She did not know about the wound, the limp or the cane. She would find out shortly, but not today. Today was the day to reveal himself to John, to see if there was any chance he could salvage the friendship after three years of lies and absence.

He had been looking down and so he heard the gun before he saw it. “Whoever you are, get the hell out,” he heard John say from the top of the stairs.

“It’s me,” he said softly, looking up. He could see the hand holding the gun tremble, could see the shock evident in John’s face. He rather hoped John let go of the trigger before he squeezed off a shot by accident, and when he saw John lower his arm he relaxed. There would not be yet another bullet ripping through his body tonight.

“Sherlock?” John asked weakly, taking a step down the stairs, then another. “Is it really you?”

“Yes John,” he said with a slight nod. “There is much to tell you.”

John moved down the stairs at a more quickened pace, and when he got to Sherlock he roughly embraced him. “I should slug you across the face,” John said, his voice thick.

Sherlock adjusted himself and hugged his friend back. “Yes, you probably should,” he said.

John pulled away after a moment. “There’s so much you have to tell me, I imagine. So many things I want to know. The hows and the whys and all of it. How you managed to pull it all off for so long.”

Sherlock nodded. “And I will, I promise.”

John pulled away completely and got a good look at him, and it took a moment to notice the cane. “You didn’t make it through unscathed,” he said quietly.

“No, I did not,” he replied.

“It will take a while to get used to it, I suppose,” he said. “Does it hurt?”

“Greatly,” Sherlock replied. “But I have been told the pain will fade in time, though the limp and the need for the cane will remain.”

“Just another reason I should spit on Moriarty’s grave,” John said, shaking his head. “Have you eaten?”

“Not recently.”

“Of course you haven’t. You felt like skin and bones a moment ago,” John said. “Come up. I made dinner. There’s enough for the both of us.” John grinned at him then. “It’s good to have you home, Sherlock.”

“It’s good to be home,” Sherlock said, giving him a grin of his own. This, this made it all worth it, he realized as he followed John up the stairs. This ending was all he could have hoped for, and that made every moment of hell worth it.


End file.
